he can at least bear contradiction, and that on a point on which
the nation itself is rather sensitive. The Duke of Wellington made
one of his guests at dinner, and the conversation is said to have
turned on the different armies of Europe! “I think it must be
generally conceded,” observed the king, “that the British cavalry
is the best in Europe; is it not Arthur?” for he is said to have
the affectation of calling the great man by his christian name, by
way of _illustrating_ himself, it is to be supposed. “The French is
very good, sir,” was the answer of a man who had seen a service very
different from that which figures in histories, novels, and gazettes.
“I allow that the French cavalry is good, but I say that our own is
better.” “The French cavalry is very good, sir.” “I do not deny it;
but is not ours better?” “The French is _very_ good, sir.” “Well, I
suppose I must knock under, since Arthur will have it so.” You are to
remember practical men say the French cavalry is the best of modern
times. Had this anecdote came from a _laquais de place_, I should not
have mentioned it.
Coming through Fleet-street, Mr. —— led me into a court, where he had
some business with a printer. Here he told me I was in Bolt-court,
celebrated as having been that in which Johnson resided. The place
seemed now abandoned to printers. Here I left my companion and
returned home.
LETTER XIX.
TO WILLIAM JAY, ESQUIRE.
I was walking to a house where I was engaged to dine, the other
evening, when a fellow near me raised one of the most appalling
street cries it was ever the misfortune of human ears to endure. The
words were “Eve-ning Cou-ri-er—great news—Duke of Wellington—Evening
Courier,” screeched without intermission, in a tremendous cracked
voice, and with lungs that defied exhaustion. Such a cry, bursting
suddenly on one, had the effect to make him believe that some
portentous event had just broke upon an astounded world. I
stopped and was about to follow the fellow, in order to buy a
paper, when another cry, in a deep bass voice, that harmonized
with the first in awful discord, roared from the opposite side of
the street, “Contradiction of Evening Courier—more facts—truth
developed—contradiction—Evening Courier.” In this manner did these
raven-throated venders of lies roam the streets, until distance
swallowed their yells—worthy agents of the falsehoods and follies of
the hour.
This little occurrence has brought to mind the subject of the daily
and periodical press, and that of literature, in general, in England,
and the duty of communicating to you some of the facts that have
reached me in relation to all these interests, which may have escaped
one residing at a distance, and who can only know them as they are
presented to the world, which is commonly under false appearances.
I presume it is a general rule, that the taste, intelligence,
principles, tone, and civilization of a nation will be reflected in
its popular publications, which will include the productions of its
periodical press of every variety. The only circumstance that will
qualify the operation of this law must be sought in the institutions.
If these are popular, the rule is pretty absolute; since the press,
by being addressed to an average intellect, will be certain to remain
on a level with its constituency. Viewed in this light, and compared
with the rest of the world rather than with moral and philosophical
truths in the abstract, the American press is highly creditable to
the American nation, corrupt, ignorant, and vulgar as so much of
it notoriously is. If, however, we look to a higher standard, and
consider the press as a means of instruction, we find less to take
pride in. The first of these facts is owing less to the merits of the
public at home, than to the misfortunes of masses of men in other
countries; and the second to a system which has created an average
opinion that over-shadows all ordinary attempts to resist it. The
prevailing characteristic of America is mediocrity.
In England, though there are local political constituencies of the
lowest scale of reason and knowledge, they exist as servants rather
than as masters. The press has no motive to address them, and of
course it aims at higher objects. But, while the strictly political
constituencies of England are scarcely of any account in the action
of the government, there is a public opinion that may be termed
extra-constitutional, that is of great importance, and which it is
necessary to manage with tact and delicacy. This common sentiment
acts through various channels, of which a single example will serve
to illustrate my meaning.
A rich man on ’change may not possess a single political right,
beyond his general franchises as a subject. He has no vote, and so
far as direct representation is concerned, no power in the state.
This is the situation of thousands in England, for while the
government is strictly one of money, seats in parliament being
bought as notoriously as commissions in the army, the system is one
which does not give money its power through qualifications, but by
a competition in large sums. But, while this stock-jobber may have
no vote, in a government so factitious, so dependent on industry, so
much in debt, so willing to borrow, and so sensitive on the subject
of pecuniary claims, his _opinion_ and goodwill become matters of the
last moment.
I have selected this instance, because the worst features of
the English press are connected with the mystifications, false
principles, falsehoods, calumnies national and personal, and flagrant
contradictions that are uttered precisely with a view to conciliate
the varying and vacillating interests that depend on the fluctuations
and hazards of trade, the public funds, and all those floating
concerns of life, which, being by their very nature more liable
to vicissitudes than homely industry, most completely demonstrate
the truth of the profound aphorism which teaches us that “the love
of money is the root of all evil.” It is not necessary to come to
England to seek examples of the effect of such an influence, for our
own city presses exhibit it, in a degree that is only qualified by
the circumstances of a state of society, which, by being a good deal
less complicated, and less liable to derangement, calls for less
watchfulness and editorial ferocity.
As a whole, then, I should say the predominant characteristic of the
English press, is dependent on the necessity of addressing itself to
the support of interests so factitious, so certain, sooner or later,
to give way, and, at the same time so all-important to the power
and prosperity of the nation, for the time being. The struggles of
parties are subservient to these ends, on which not only party but
national power depend. If it has been said truly, that the sun, in
its daily course around the earth, is accompanied by the roll of the
British morning drum, it might with equal justice have been added,
and followed by the sophisms to which interests so conflicting are
the parent.
In guarding these interests all parties unite. In this respect there
is no difference between the Times and the Courier, the Edinburgh
and the Quarterly. They may quarrel with each other about the fruits
of these national advantages, which they proclaim to be national
rights, but they will quarrel with all mankind to secure them to
Great Britain. It must be remembered that vituperation and calumny
are the natural resource of those who are weak in truth and argument,
as stones and clubs are the weapons of children. A shameless,
ill-concealed, national cupidity, then, I take to be the predominant
quality of the English press. I do not mean that the man of England
is a whit more selfish than the man of America, or the man of France,
but that he lives in a condition of high pecuniary prosperity,
(always a condition of peril) and under circumstances of constant and
peculiar jeopardy, that keep the evil passions and evil practices of
wealth in incessant excitement.
You know the mechanical appearance of the English press already.
There is much talent, mingled with much vulgar ignorance, employed
in the news departments; the journals, in this particular, appearing
to address themselves to a wider range of tastes and information,
than is usual even with us. Many of our journals, even in the towns,
are essentially vulgar, in their tone and language, adapting both
to the level of a very equivocal scale of tastes and manners, but
I do not remember ever to have seen in an American journal of the
smallest pretensions to respectability, as low and as intrinsically
vulgar paragraphs as frequently are seen here, in journals of the
first reputation. The language of the shop, such as “whole figure,”
“good article,” “chalking up,” “shelling out,” and other Pearl-street
terms, frequently find their way into the leading articles of a New
York paper, whereas those of London are almost always worded in
better taste; but, on the other hand, one daily sees the meanest and
lowest cockneyisms, united with infamous grammar, (not faults of
hurry and inadvertency, but faults of downright vulgarity) in the
minor communications of the English press. Of this quality are the
common expressions of “think of me (my) writing a letter,” “he was
agreeable (he agreed) to go,” “I am recommended (advised) to stay,”
&c. &c.
It is the fashion to extol the talents of the Times. I have now
been an attentive reader of this journal for several years, and I
must say its reputation strikes me as being singularly unmerited.
That it occasionally contains a pretty strong article is true, for
its circulation would secure the casual contributions of able men,
but, as a whole, I rank it much below several other journals in
this country, and very much below some in Paris. It is said this
paper reflects the times, and that its name has been given with
a view to this character. The simple solution of all this is, I
fancy, that the paper is treated as a property, and that it looks to
circulation more than to principles, humouring prejudices with a view
to popularity. The mere calling of names, and the bold vituperation,
for which the Times is notorious, does not require any talent,
though nothing is more apt to impose on common understandings. The
Morning Chronicle appears to me to possess the most true talent of
any journal in London. This appearance, however, may be owing to the
fact of its espousing liberal and just principles, for, unlike most
of its contemporaries, it has no need of resorting to sophisms and
laboured mystifications to maintain a state of things which is false
in itself; for it should never be forgotten, in contemplating all the
favourite theories of England, that the argument has been adapted to
the fact, and not the fact to the argument.[4] I have seen occasional
articles from a journal called the Scotsman, that appear to be
written with the simple straight-forward power of truth and honesty.
There is a lucid common sense about this paper, which gives it a high
place in the scale of the journals of the day. No article that I
have ever met with in either of these two papers betrays the cloven
foot of the pecuniary interests mentioned, though I cannot take upon
myself to say that they are entirely free from the imputation. Still
they have always appeared to me to be conducted with too much talent,
to lend themselves to a practice that one would think must offend the
moral sense of every right-thinking and right-feeling man.
Mr. Canning, not long before his death, openly vaunted the moral
influence of England, by way of supporting his political schemes.
Nothing is more evident than the fact that the journals of this
country frequently admit articles that are intended to produce an
effect in other states. I think they over-estimate their influence,
however, for I do not believe that the opinion of England has any
material power, except in America. As a people the English are not
liked on the continent of Europe, and I think the disposition is
rather to cavil at their truths, than to receive their fallacies. The
aristocracy of England has a great influence, by its wealth, power,
and style, on the _desires_ of all the other European aristocracies,
which very naturally wish themselves to be as well off, but the
dogmas of this school would hardly do for the daily journals. I do
not say that the English press totally overlooks this class and
its interests; on the contrary, it does much to sustain both, but
it is by indirect means, and not by argument, or by appeals to the
passions. It tells of the liberal acts of individuals of the body,
recapitulates the amount of rent that has been remitted to the
tenantry, and the number of blankets that has been distributed to the
poor. The left hand is studiously made to know what the right hand
has done in this way, among the great and noble, while the charities
of the more humble are usually permitted to pass in silence. Not
satisfied with this, the world is regularly enlightened on the
subject of the large entertainments given by the great, the names
of the guests, and not unfrequently with the dresses of the women.
The ravenous appetite of the secondary classes to know something of
their superiors, is fed daily in this extraordinary manner, (the
practice exists nowhere else, I believe,) and thousands of dreamy
bachelors and prim maidens, pass their days in the high enjoyment
of contemplating at a distance, the rare felicities of a state of
being to which a nearer approach is denied them, and which a nearer
approach would destroy.
I remember when I came to London in 1826, to have laughed at an
account of the manner in which Lord A., and Lady B., and Sir Thomas
C., had passed their mornings, with the usual gossip of fashionable
life that the article contained, when an American who had been some
time in England, gravely assured me that there were thousands in
the nation, who would not buy the paper were this momentous stuff
omitted. There have been books, for a very long time, which contain
the pedigrees, titles, creations, and family alliances of the peers,
and which furnish mental aliment for hundreds of devout admirers of
aristocracy. These books, which are useful enough in a certain way,
when it is remembered that the peers control the first empire of
modern times, have been extended to the baronets and knights, and
latterly to the gentry of the country. The whole forms a curious
study, when one is disposed to ferret out the true principle of the
government, and the modes by which families have attained power,[5]
but they are read with avidity, in England, as a means of holding
an intercourse with beings, who, as respects the mass, form quite
another order of creation.
But if the journals, in this manner, contribute to support the
aristocracy by feeding these morbid cravings of the excluded, they
do more towards overturning it, just now, by their open and rude
attacks. I do not say, that I have ever met with an Englishman, who
is not, in some degree, under the influence of the national deference
for nobility, for to be frank with you, I can scarcely recall twenty
Americans, who are exempt from the same weakness; but there are a
good many who, by drawing manfully on their reason and knowledge,
are enabled to detect the fallacies of the system, and who do not
scruple to expose them in the public journals. These men, of whom I
may have made the acquaintance of a dozen, remind me of the lasting
influence which the ghost stories of the nursery produce on the human
mind. We drink in these tales eagerly in childhood, and, in after
life, though reason and reflection teach us their absurdity, few of
us go through a church-yard in a dark night, without fancying that
its sheeted tenants may rise from their graves. Thus do the boldest
of the English, when philosophising the most profoundly on the wrongs
and inexpediency of aristocratic rule, look stealthily over their
shoulders, as if they saw a lord! You may judge of the profoundness
of the impression, here, by its remains in America. Certainly, the
mass of the American people, care no more for a lord, than they care
for a wood-chuck; perhaps, also the feeling of the real gentry of the
country, is getting to be very much what it ought to be, on such a
subject, seeing no more than a man of the upper classes of another
country, in an English nobleman; but take the class immediately below
those who are accustomed to our highest associations, and there is
still a good deal of the sentiment of the tailor, in their manner of
contemplating an English nobleman. Alas! it is much easier to declare
war, and gain victories in the field, and establish a political
independence, than to emancipate the mind. Thrice happy is it for
America, that her facts are so potent, as to be irresistable; for
were our fate left to opinion, I fear we should prove ourselves to be
any thing but philosophers.
It will not be doing justice to the English press, if we overlook
its disposition to indulge in coarse, national, and personal
vituperation. The habit of resorting to low, personal abuse,
against all who thwart the views of their government, or who
have the manliness to promulgate their opinions of the national
characteristics, let it be done as honestly, as temperately, or as
justly as it may, is too well known to admit of dispute. It may be
a natural weakness in man, to attempt to ridicule his enemies, but
the English calumniate them. They calumniated every distinguished
man of our revolution; no general can gain a victory over them,
and escape their vituperation; and the moral enormities attributed
to Napoleon, had their origin in the same national propensity. Some
of the English, with whom I have spoken on this subject, while they
have admitted this offensive trait in their press, have ascribed it
to the morality of the nation, to whose wounded sensibilities, the
abuse is addressed! This is very much like imputing uncharitableness
to sins, to a Christian conscience. Certainly, I am no vindicator
of the personal, or political, ethics of Napoleon. As respects his
morals, I presume, they were very much like those of other Frenchmen
of his time and opportunities, but if the sensibilities of England,
were so exaggerated, on such subjects, why did they go abroad in
quest of examples to scourge? I doubt, if there be any thing worse
in the private career of Napoleon, than the intrigue with the “Fair
Quaker,” in that of George III., or any thing approaching that, which
every well-informed man here tells me, is the present condition of
the court of Windsor. Did you ever hear the familiar French song of
Malbrook?
“Malbrook s’en va t’en guerre.”
etc. etc. etc.
Malbrook, you know, was the Duke of Marlborough, and the song is
the French mode of revenging the nation, for the manifold floggings
it received at his hands. The wisdom of thus killing an enemy
in doggerel, whom they could neither slay, nor defeat, may be
questioned, but imagine, for a moment, that Wellington, and his
fortunes had been French, and then fancy the abuse he would have
received. I never yet met with a Frenchman, who had not a most
sincere antipathy to the Duke of Wellington; they tell fierce
stories about the Bois de Boulogne, and other similar absurdities,
the outbreakings of the mortified pride of a military people, but I
never yet saw, or heard a personal calumny against him, in France,
unless it was connected directly with his public acts. They say, he
permitted the terms of the capitulation of Paris, to be violated;
but they do not enter into his private life, to villify the man. I
have, sometimes, been afraid, this tendency to blackguardism, was
“Anglo-Saxon,” for it manifests itself in our own journals, more
particularly among the editors of New England, who, if they have
more of the sturdy common sense, and masculine propensities of the
Fatherland, than their more southern contemporaries, have also the
coarse-mindedness. I have industriously sought the cause of this
peculiarity, and at one time, I was disposed to attribute it to a
low taste in the mass of the nation, which I again ascribed to the
effects of the institutions, just as with us, the strongest term of
reproach among the blacks, is for one to call his fellow, a “nigger;”
but observation has convinced me, that this national taste is only
secondary, as a cause. The press now caters to it, it is true, but
it first created it. I believe, its origin is to be found in the
vulgarity inherent in the active management of capricious commercial
interests, the factitious state of the national power, and the
genuine and unaffected outbreakings of a pecuniary cupidity. Look at
home, and you will see the presses under the control of those, who
have the management of floating interests, tainted by the same vice.
“The love of money, is the root of all evil,” and the propensity to
blackguard those who thwart the rapacity of the grasping, is one of
its most innocent enormities.
I think it very evident, that there is much writing in this country,
that is especially intended for “our market.” The English, who
control the reviews and journals, are fully aware of the influence
they wield over the public mind in America, and you may be quite
certain, that a nation, whose very power is the result of combination
and method, does not neglect means so obvious to attain its ends.
There is scarcely a doubt, that articles, unfavourable to America,
low, blackguard abuse that was addressed to the least worthy of
the national propensities of the English, were prepared under
the direction of the government, and inserted in the Quarterly
Review. Mr. Gifford admitted as much as this, to an American of my
acquaintance, who has distinctly informed me of the fact. I presume
the same is true, in reference to the daily press. Some fifty
paragraphs have met my eye, since I have been here, in which the
writers have pretty directly exulted in their power over the American
mind. This power is wielded to advance the interests of England,
and, as a matter of course, to thwart our own. It probably exceeds
any thing of which you have any idea. Whether the English government
actually employs writers about our own presses or not, at present, I
cannot say, but it has, unquestionably, agents of this sort, on the
continent of Europe, and I think it highly probable that it has them
in America.
We talk of the predestination of the Turks, but I question if the
earth contains a people who so recklessly abandon their dearest, and
most important interests, so completely to chance, as ourselves. Both
the government and the people, appear to me, to trust implicitly
to Providence for their future safety, abandoning even opinion to
the control of their most active enemies, and shamelessly deserting
those who would serve them, unless they happen to be linked with the
monster, party. The chief of a political faction may do almost any
thing with impunity, but he who defends his country, unconnected with
party, is abandoned to the tender mercies of the common enemy. In
this respect, we are like the countryman in a crowd of pick-pockets,
full of ourselves, but utterly unconscious of our risks.
The young Englishman who aspires to fortune will select his object,
and support it, or attack it, as the case may be, with his pen.
He will endeavour to counteract democracy, to sustain the English
Free Trade system, to excite prejudice against America, to arouse
antipathy to Russia, to prove France ought not to possess Antwerp,
or, to uphold some other national interest, and, if a clever man, he
is certain to be cherished by that government and rewarded. Some of
the most eminent men England has produced, have forced themselves
into notice in this manner.